


Lighthouse

by erisjade16



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Black Reader, Black in Fanfiction, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Character in a coma, Erotica, F/M, Female Character of Color, Fluff and Smut, I did a thing and it hurts, Interracial Relationship, Mentions of Death, NSFW, Protective Bucky Barnes, Reader Of Color - Freeform, Smut, Song fic, What Have I Done, all the feels, dad!bucky, non Canon, what canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-12 13:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10491672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erisjade16/pseuds/erisjade16
Summary: At times, Bucky can convince himself of this, that his wife is simply sleeping and at any moment she’ll open those big, beautiful brown eyes and see him there.  Smile in that soft way she always did and reach out a hand to him.  Pull him in close.  Hold him tight...





	1. One day When I'm Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I did a thing. It hurts and I don't know if it'll get better.

 

 

**_One day when I’m gone_ **

**_Scatter my ashes on Georgica Pond_ **

**_Litter me memories down Lily Pond Lane_ **

**_And that’s where I’ll stay_ **

****

_Sleeping.  She’s sleeping._

At times, Bucky can convince himself of this, that his wife is simply sleeping and at any moment she’ll open those big, beautiful brown eyes and see him there.  Smile in that soft way she always did and reach out a hand to him.  Pull him in close.  Hold him tight.  

In his head, he slips beneath the sheets and presses his nose into the soft, fragrant skin of her neck.  Can hear her breathless laugh in his ear and feel her thin fingers sifting through his hair, her nails scratching over his scalp the way she knows he likes.   And she feels so good against him – soft and warm and alive.  She’s home and she’s safe.

He can see all of this, though the thought is hazy around the edges and he can feel the weight of it slipping through his fingers.  It’s _almost_ real and his breath doesn’t come so short and shallow.

But, then, as if a switch has been flipped, the hospital room comes into full focus and he knows she’s not sleeping.  At least not in the way he wants her to be. The way his heavy heart needs her to be. The room is suddenly far too bright, the biting smell of antiseptic and cheap cleanser much too heavy, and his gut twists, nausea rolling through him even though there’s nothing in his stomach, because he only eats when one of the kids reminds him, forces him, to do so.

This is real; she’s not sleeping.  She’s in a coma, and Bucky, despite all he’s been through, has no idea what to do, how to handle this.  Had never planned for _this._ And, here, in this bright and clean place, he can feel it all falling apart, crumbling, breaking apart piece by piece as each day passes and his wife doesn’t wake up.

He reaches out now, leaning forward a little in the uncomfortable chair he’s claimed as his own, which stays next to her bed even during those brief times he’s not here, and almost touches her, but stops himself right before his flesh fingers touch her arm.  Pulls his hand back.  Lets it rest on the bed’s edge, close though not touching because the warmth of her skin might actually break his heart more than it already is.

Broken.

In pieces.

Shattered.

It was never supposed to be like this.  He had imagined he’d out-live her; they had discussed it early on, way before they’d gotten married and, then, soon after their first child was born, and the terror had been real for him as each year passed and he remained, mostly, unchanged.   She had never shied away from the reality of their situation.  Never.  Not once. She was wholly and entirely human, and he was… more.   Different. Enhanced.  

But it was supposed to be old age which took her. Or some illness they hadn’t been aware of and, thus, not prepared for.  Not this.  Not some idiot drunk driver who’d had seven too many and just happened to be traveling the same road as his wife as she’d made her way home from work one night.

_Please, baby.  Please, wake up.  I can’t do this without you.  How am I supposed to do this without you?_

The door to the room opens with a soft whoosh, the noise beyond briefly filling the space around him before gliding shut, and he looks up to find their 16 year old Naya, their middle daughter, standing there. And, for a moment, his heart jumps, kicking and knocking inside his chest because her resemblance to her mother is suddenly so striking, almost disturbing, especially her big, kind eyes. Eyes that glance over him, checking him over in the space of one stuttering breath, because she is very much like her mother – a natural born care-giver.

**_Come visit me often_ **

**_Just whisper my name_ **

**_And I’ll come alive on the dunes and the waves_ **

“Hey, Daddy,” Naya says gently, a soft smile ticking at the corner of her mouth.  She moves forward, her lime-green converse almost silent on the cold tiled floor.  She comes to stand beside her father.  Bends low to place a kiss to his scruffy cheek. Leaves her hand on his shoulder as she straightens to her full height.  She’s tall.  Like him.  

“How is she today?”

 _Unchanged_ , the doctors keep saying, which is neither bad nor good, but he can’t convince himself to utter the word.  It’s sharp and heavy and sits like a rock in his gut.

He pats his daughters’ hand.  Returns his gaze to the woman lying in the bed, the warm umber of her skin stark against the crisp white sheets.  He makes a mental note to ask one of the kids to bring her quilt next time, the one with the multicolored dragonflies stitched to the border.  Chides himself for not thinking of it sooner.

Naya settles her long, lean frame on the edge of her mother’s bed.  Her hair is loose and shifts over her shoulders as she leans over to take her mother’s hand in her own.  She stares at her a long moment, glances briefly toward the blinds and the setting sun outside before returning her gaze.

“Lizzie and Grant will be around in a bit,” she says, referring to her older and younger siblings respectively, her eyes moving over her mother’s face, as if she’s memorizing the lines and contours of it. “Uncle Steve and Uncle Sam said they’d bring them by.”

Bucky simply nods, his eyes moving between two of his favorite girls, absently noting their differences.  Their similarities.   Deflecting. Trying to take his mind off of … this.

“Have you eaten?” Naya says, though he’s certain she already knows the answer.

When he doesn’t respond, when he merely shifts back in his seat, she spares him a sideways glance, lips pursed and one dark brow raised, and that look, _that look_ is so much like his wife’s that he’s almost laughing.  Averts his eyes and bites down on the inside of his cheek to reign in the mounting hysteria.

They sit in silence for a long, long time. The sun  sets.  The room gets darker, filling with lazy purple shadows.  A nurse comes in to check his wife’s vitals, makes sure the electrodes are still in place and not beginning to peel away.  Bucky’s back begins to knot up and he stands. Stretches.  Moves to the window though he feels like there’s an invisible thread, shining and strong as steel, keeping him connected to the woman in the hospital bed, and it’s tugging at him.  Pulling.  Vibrating.

Naya is the first to break the silence, and what she says makes him a bit light-headed.  Fills him with pain, with dread, and a softly flickering sort of staticky joy.

“What was the first thing Ma ever said to you, Pop?”

Bucky smiles softly, wryly, moving back to his bedside chair.  The memories flood his brain, bright and clear and edged in warm golden light.

He opens his mouth to speak, says around a low, rough laugh.  “She said… ‘You’re in my way.  I need sugar for this bitter ass coffee.’”

Naya looks at him.  Blinks.  Then laughs, full out and loud, because that is exactly something her mother would say, managing to be both snarky and sweet at the same time, especially when it came to her coffee.

In this little hospital room, with the future so uncertain and the love of his life lying in a bed and caught somewhere in the in-between, with his daughter’s laughter ringing in his ears, Bucky feels lost. Horribly and painfully lost.

**_And I’ll be your lighthouse, I’ll be your lighthouse_ **

**_And I’ll be your lighthouse, you’ll be one for me_ **


	2. One day when I'm free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave some love and comments if you like!!!

 

**_One day when I’m free  
_ **

**_Take a ferry ride over and_ **

**_Be close to me_ **

 

“You ok?”

She’s been watching Bucky in silence for nearly ten minutes, caught, as she often is, by the beauty of him.  Yes, he’s beautiful and strong and more than just a little broken.  And he’s hers.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed.  Dim swathes of moonlight drift over him.  They cast his slightly hunched form in wavering shadow and soft, blue light.  It glints on his metal arm, winking and dancing inside the warm stillness of her bedroom.  The messy fall of his auburn her obscures his face slightly, but she can imagine the look on it as he stares off into nothing, every line and hard edge as familiar to her as her own.

Familiar…

Familiar is what comes to mind when she thinks about him.  When he’s near.  When she catches sight of the small smile that ghosts across his face, quick as a flash and gone before it’s fully formed.  Familiar, like a song she’s forgotten, and only half-remembers, that swells inside her, mixed up with joy and a strange, shifting sense of nostalgia.

He’d always seemed familiar to her, oddly and inexplicably, from the very moment she’d met him, when he’d been blocking the refreshment table, more specifically the coffee, in back of her little bookstore where she’d allowed some of the locals to run various support groups for the past several years, including her close friend, Sam Wilson.

But, perhaps, it wasn’t him which had been so familiar to her.  Maybe it was the pain he held so close and tight, almost though not completely hidden behind a carefully crafted mask of neutrality.  Of watchfulness and wariness.  A pain he wore like a heavy winter coat and remained draped haphazardly across his broad shoulders.

He sits motionless for a long moment, a perfect statue.  Then he seems to take a breath, pulls the air in deep, filling his lungs before slowly turning his head to look at her.  Her fingers itch to touch him, to rake through his hair and smooth over the scruffy line of his jaw.  To pull him in and circle her arms around his broad frame.  Because he’s familiar to her.  Because he’s home.

His pale blue eyes move over her face, and she watches the shadows behind them shift and begin to fade, if only just a little.  And that makes her happy.

“I’m fine.” he says absently.  His voice, all low and rough and I-just-rolled-out-of-bed, echoes in her chest.  Moves lower where it pulses and throbs in hot bursts in her belly.  His metal arm whirs and clicks softly as his fingers curl in on themselves.

She doesn’t believe him.  He knows it.  She knows that he knows she knows it.  But she simply smiles and moves closer to him.  Curls like a cat around his overly warm body, her stomach against his lower back and her knees pressing gently into his hip.  Props herself up on a bent elbow and stares up at him.  Waits him out, because she knows pushing him will only make him detach.  Pull away.  

She doesn’t want that.  She likes him here and present.  Close.  

The light sparks in his eyes.  She trails the flat of her hand slowly, gently, down the ridges of his ribcage. Kisses the tips of his fingers when he reaches out to cup her cheek in his big hand.

**Build a house on a rock**

**Where the bay meets the sea**

**Where the dreams of my mother**

**Are buried like seeds**

“How can it work?”

His voice is distant, as if he’s speaking to himself, and she understands now what’s pulled him out of his rare, peaceful slumber.  Tugged him from her embrace.   

It isn’t the dreams this time, remnants of a past from which he isn’t so far removed, and which she’s certain will haunt him for the rest of his many days.  

No.  It’s none of that.   

She shifts again, this time curling herself more tightly around his body, as if she means to protect him, even if it’s from himself.  Gazes up at him through the fringe of her dark lashes.

“Bucky,” she says lowly.  Quietly.  Briefly rests her thin hand on his thick thigh and feels the muscles there jump at her touch.

Over time, old fears have become new ones.  No, the old fears haven’t changed.  They’re still there, though not as close to the surface anymore.

Instead, there’s her.  The passing of time.  A future he can’t see clearly and one he doesn’t believe at all possible.  He, Bucky Barnes, whose life is a testament to the impossible.  

“Bucky,” she says again, and he pulls his hand from her face.  Turns away.  His hair shifts against his cheek and she quickly, if a little clumsily, raises up on her knees next to him.  Brushes the hair from his face and presses a firm kiss against the curve of his flesh shoulder.  

“We’ll love,” she says softly, her tone almost matter-of-fact, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.   “We’ll live.  Maybe have a baby or two for our troubles.”

He makes a rough, disbelieving sound.  There’s more whirring and clicking from his arm,  an oddly comforting sound.  Musical,in its own way.

“I don’t deserve it,” he shoots back.  And she knows he means it.  Can sense the terror rising in him, clawing at him, and it makes her stomach feel hollow and heavy.   Makes it ache with the need to soothe and comfort him.  Wipe away all the pain and the writhing, hungry shadows swirling inside him.

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  Maybe you deserve better, sweetheart.  But, I’m what you get.  And, you’re kinda stuck with me now.”  

She leans in, molds her body to his side.   She paints his flesh with love, with the heat and sincerity of her words, pausing a moment to breathe in the warm skin and sparking metal scent of him.  A shiver runs through him when she walks two fingers up the length of his spine.  “I’ll be damned if I let you go, Bucky.”

She kisses his shoulder again.  Drags her lips up and over the taut muscle there.  Feels him beginning to relax against her.  

“If I can help it,” she goes on, “if it’s within my power, I’ll always be with you, Bucky.”

“You can’t promise that,” he replies, even as his metal fingers curl over the back of her neck and he turns his head to brush his lips over hers.

This time it’s she who snorts in disbelief.

“Wanna bet?”

There’s a moment of silence, of settling, of breathing in each other’s air as her words, her promises, move around them.  Then he’s moving, shifting his big body and using it to push her onto her back.   Her arms instinctively close around him, and he slips over her, makes room for himself between her lush thighs.  She feels him, hot and hard already, and releases a long, contented sigh.

His teeth find the soft spot below her chin.  They nip at it and then his tongue is flicking out to soothe the slight sting.  

“I love you,” he murmurs, and it feels just as good as the first time he said - in a back corner of her bookstore, staring down into a cold cup of coffee, the words spilling out as if he’d only just realized it.

She skims her hands up the broad expanse of his back, the skin warm and tight here.  Curls her fingers through his hair and presses a kiss to his temple.

She wants to say it back, but she knows there’s even more he needs in this moment.  “I’ll always be here, Bucky.  As long as I can help it, you’ve got me.”

**And I’ll be your lighthouse**

**I’ll be your lighthouse**

 

He sighs against her skin as he sinks into her, her body always wet and ready, open and welcoming of every piece of him.  Holds himself steady for a moment as her walls flutter and clutch at his cock.  The pleasure winds through her, moves like a hot, electrified wave through her.  It sparks in wavering shades of dark red and swirling blue behind her closed eyelids.

He moves with certainty, with a solid sureness and a quiet desperation, his arms banded behind her back and his mouth claiming hers as he plunges through her slick heat.  Shows her with his body, with each low, shuddering utterance of her name, how much he loves her, needs her, wants to believe all of these things she promises him.

She comes first, panting his name, squeezing him tight within her, clinging to him, her back bowing as the pleasure fill hers near to bursting.

When Bucky comes, it’s quiet, but his fingers dig into her flesh and the low sounds he makes are needy and hungry.  

Afterward, they lay together, allowing the sweat to dry on their skin, and watching the shadows created by the moonlight caught in her thin curtains dancing across the ceiling.  He holds her hand, refuses to let go of it as he absently traces the outline of her engagement ring with his thumb.  It’s quiet and the silence surrounding them now is perfectly empty and, at least for the moment, his fears have been allayed.  

There’s a measure of peace and they’ll take it, enjoy it, wallow in it until the fears rise again.  And then they’ll deal with them in the same way they always have - with promises and whispers and the connection of their flesh beneath the moonlight.

**And I’ll be your lighthouse**

**You’ll be one for me**

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried to temper the angst with some smut to make you feel better...


	3. I'll be your lighthouse...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm still your lighthouse...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your love and comments! They've made this little angsty mess so much fun to write!!!

* * *

 

* * *

**Cuz Time is the worst kind of friend  
**

**Always there ‘til you need it**

**But gone in the end**

In the almost two months that they’ve been at this, the kids have developed a kind of routine.   It gives Bucky some semblance of solace, while filling him with a near heart wrenching grief.

They have their mother’s spirit, that’s for certain.  They have her unflinching will and inability to give up even when it all seems like such a lost cause.  And he knows that without them - without their smiles, their laughter, without them to hold his pieces together - without Naya’s mothering, without Grant’s humor, without Lizzie’s little hand finding its way into his own, he would have most assuredly given up by now.

Whether through some unspoken understanding, he can’t say he’s been any kind of a decent parent to them lately, or if they’ve simply worked out a schedule amongst themselves, they each spend some time with their mother.  

However, at least once a week they gather together and have ‘family’ night, where they all convene in their mother’s room and behave as if nothing has changed.  As if it’s any old night and they’ve simply crowded into their parents bedroom to enjoy some quality time with them, a habit that hadn’t changed over the years, no matter how old or ‘cool’ the kids thought they were.

Tonight is no different.  Naya ushers him out the room, makes him swear to get something on his stomach, and he returns to find them circled around his wife. Naya is sort of curled up at the top of the bed with her mother’s head cradled in her lap; Lizzie has made a spot for herself next to her mother’s hip and has just begun painting the older woman’s nails; Grant, who has grown into a leaner, darker version of his father, is perched on the edge of Bucky’s chair, his long fingers curled around his mother’s wrist where it lay atop her favorite, multicolored dragonfly quilt.

And they’re talking, simply talking, laughing quietly now at something Grant has said, and it all feels so normal, so… familiar, that he nearly drops the cup of coffee in his hand as he starts to back out of the room.  

There’s a hard something in his chest.  He can’t breathe around it.  It sticks and pokes at him, and blurs the edges of his vision.  Has him rushing down the corridor on trembling legs, past the nurses station and the curious gazes of the night shift staff, through two sets of sliding glass doors and out onto the wide balcony which juts out from the side of the building and is reserved for visitors.  The coffee cup drops, the liquid inside splashing his pant leg.

There’s panic and dread filling up inside him, terrible and dark, and there’s no her to clear it away.  

He’s not going to make it; he’ll die if she doesn’t pull through this because there is no way he’ll be able to exist, be able to live, without her light.  Which is almost laughable, and he does laugh, weak and watery, the sound drifting off into the night.  He’s got a metal arm and he’s 100 years old and he’s been through some horrible shit, been the cause of just as much horrible shit, but he’s sure he’ll die if…

“Buck?”

**Oh, but love is stronger than it**

**Love is stronger than it**

Bucky coughs, blinks away the tears clouding his vision before turning to find Sam standing just this side of the balcony doors.  His face is soft in the low light, his dark eyes gleaming and watchful.

“Are you…?” he starts, then shakes his head, knowing the question is stupid.  Pointless.  Shoves his hands into his pockets.  “You rushed right by me,” he chooses instead.  

The dark thing in Bucky’s chest loosens a bit.  “Sorry.  The kid’s are with her.  Wanted to give ‘em some time.”

They both know it’s a lie; Bucky wouldn’t leave her side unless forced to do so, but Sam doesn’t call him on it.  

Sam moves forward, slow strides bringing him up beside his friend, who wasn’t always his friend, a  mere few inches separating the space between them.

They’re silent, watching the sky, the handful of stars visible just beyond the city lights, dim against the inky black.  Bucky pulls in a slow, shaking breath.

“She’s…” Sam starts.  Then, stops again and Bucky can almost feel him choosing his next words.  He tenses, waiting, because so many people have tried to talk to him, to offer suggestions on how he should deal with this, all meaning well but never understanding.

He doesn’t give Sam the chance to speak, the words coming out before he’s even decided to do so.

“She said she’d always be with me.”  

 

**Yeah, love is**

**much stronger than it**

 

He blinks against a memory, the hazy vision of her darkened bedroom the night he’d proposed to her. He remembers being downright terrified of the future but unwilling to conceive of one without her.  “She said, if she could help it, she’d always be -”

His voice breaks, so he stops.  Reaches out and curls his hands, both flesh and blood and glinting metal, around the low railing.   From the corner of his eye he can see Sam nodding.

“She meant that.  She’s strong and she’s stubborn…”

Sam is being … generous, and Bucky laughs softly.  

“I’ll get the kids home.”

“God,” Bucky huffs, leaning back and raking a hand through his hair.  “I’m fuckin’ this all up.  My kids… She left for three days once, went to visit her Ma, and I nearly burned the damn house down.”  He takes another deep breath.  “Now …”

 

**So if you’re ever like me**

**Daydreaming how different this life would be**

Sam’s hand on his shoulder keeps the rising panic at bay.  The other man doesn’t speak for a long moment, but the pressure of his hand there is reassurance enough amid the silence.

“I’ll get the kids home.”

He follows Sam back they way they came.  The kids are saying their good night's, never goodbye, and he hugs each one in turn, holding on much tighter, much longer, than usual.   He thinks he can feel her there, in his children's’ embrace.  Her warmth.  Her light.  Her love.

Lizzie holds on to him the longest.  Gazes up at him with the most peaceful look on her lovely, tawny face.

“You ok, Bug,” he asks, using the nickname he’d given her what seems like so long ago.  She’s 18, a college student,  but he’s still her baby girl.  

“You done good, Pop,” Lizzie replies, her voice a low rasp of sound.  “You’ve always been so good at keepin’ her safe.”

He thinks his heart stops before it jump starts again, and he wonders how she knows how he’s been beating himself up for not being there when she needed him the most.  Wonders if she knows just how much their mother has protected him over the years.

He tries to speak.  Fails.  Finally manages to croak out, “I love her, Bug.  So much.”

Lizzie smiles. She pats him solidly on the back, her strength surprising him, before slipping out of his hold and following her siblings out the door, leaving him alone with his silent, sleeping wife.  

A long moment passes, during which time Bucky attempts to breathe.  Tries to get his feet back under him.  The echo of his children’s voices, Lizzie’s words, moving through him, lingering around him, as if the room itself is reluctant to let it all go.  

Finally, he reclaims his chair.  Adjusts it just so and gazes down at his wife.  Lizzie has painted her nails a bright, neon blue and it looks good against the backdrop of her dark skin.

**If the ones you loved most**

**Hadn’t taken their leave**

He takes her hand.  Links his metal fingers through hers.  Stares a long time at her wedding ring.  Turns it this way and that to watch the light sparkle in it.

He decides he won’t give up.  He’ll wait.  And listen.  Be strong the way she’d taught him.  The way she’d always been for him.  He owes it to her.  Owes it to those beautiful babies she’s given him.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.  He hasn’t slept, not really slept, in so long that when he wakes, hunched over the edge of the bed and his back in knots,  he’s more than a little disoriented.   His brain is fuzzy.   His mouth tastes awful.

He’s aware of having dreamed, but not certain of what he’d dreamt.   She was there, of course, but she’d been a thought, an impression - her warm, comforting scent and the solid pounding of her heartbeat in his ear. Her voice somewhere in the back of his mind. Laughing, maybe.  Teasing him, of course.  And he feels different.  Sore, yes, but somehow… lighter.  More certain of himself.  More solid.  Not completely whole, but… something…   

He sits up, his back protesting with every movement, and his eyes immediately going to her face.  Serene, still.  Unchanged.  Breathing evenly.  Peaceful in the glow of early morning light.

Bucky goes home, but not before politely threatening the staff and making sure they have all his numbers on file.

“She so much as twitches her big toe, you call me immediately.”

It’s Saturday and the kids are all home.  They’re happy to see him, though a bit wary,  but they welcome him.  

There’s pizza and laughter and junk food and fantastic stories about the woman of the house.  

When the call comes, they all rush out and pile into his truck.  Drive back to the hospital  in silence.  

He’d heard the words, but they hadn’t made sense.  And even when they file into the little hospital room, it still doesn’t make sense.  

But, she’s there, sitting up in bed, her quilt draped around her shoulders to ward off the cold.   And when she lifts those big, brown eyes in his direction, the world around him seems to splinter and break, a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding rushing out of him in a harsh burst.   

He can feel the wall at his back.  Can feel his heart pounding in his chest, hard and fast, and he can’t believe it.

The kids, however, are more believing.  They rush to her bedside, crying and laughing in turn and, even in her weakened state, she pulls them to her.  Plants kisses on their faces and accepts the ones they offer before slipping back into the pile of pillows used to prop her up.  She’s smiling.  Beautiful.  Struggling to keep her eyes open though she’s been asleep for weeks.  

“Pop! Pop, can you believe it?  She’s awake!”

Grant is elated.  Positively floating now that his mother is awake and most definitely alive.  His smile is so bright and blinding.  He sprints over, grabs his father’s hand and tugs him forcefully to his mother’s bedside.

 

**Oh, and wishing your babies**

**Could know your Daddy and me**

 

Bucky doesn’t know what to do.  And it’s a strange place to be.  After all the watching and waiting, after all the hope had run out and he’d settled into the silence, she’s awake and staring at him, a thin smile on her full lips.  

He doesn’t know what to say.  What to do.  Even the kids are quiet now; even the nurses who’ve come in the check on their patient.

Her head shifts on the pillow and the smile gets a little bigger, despite her eyes started to droop a little.

“I was dreamin’ about you,” she says, her voice low and hoarse from lack of use, and it breaks him.  

Bucky sags against the side of the bed, relief washing over him like the sunshine spilling through the windows, and he curls himself over her.  Buries his face in the warm skin of her neck and breathes her in.  

Her fingers find their way into his hair.  Scrape over the base of his scalp the way she knows he likes.  Says softly, quietly, for his ears alone…

“I promised you, didn’t I?”

**Know that I’m still your lighthouse**

**Yeah, I’m still your lighthouse**

**Yeah, I’ll be your lighthouse**

**You’ll be one for me**

* * *

 


	4. The (smutty) End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Bucky won't have sex with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to all who've read and left love and comments on this angsty little fic. 
> 
> Now for the good stuff! Enjoy the Bucky smut!!!!
> 
> He deserves a happy ending, right?
> 
> And thanks to Ms. GetinMelanin for encouraging the absolute trash bin of my thoughts! Loooove yooou!!!!

“Bucky won't have sex with me.”

 

Steve chokes on his coffee, coughing and sputtering and covering his mouth with the back of his hand.  Color rushes to his cheeks and his pale blue eyes go wide.

 

Sam’s reaction is much more subdued.  He stares across the island at his long-time friend, one brow cocked at an annoyed angle.  “That was… unnecessary,” he says. “I'm uncomfortable right now.” 

 

He sighs.  Gets up to rinse out his mug in the sink.  

 

She narrows her eyes at her friends, heat fanning out under the collar of her t-shirt.  She hadn't meant to say that out loud.  She'd only just been thinking it, but when Steve asked how she was feeling, it just… came out.  

 

It’s been five months since she woke up.  Five months of trying to find a balance again, some semblance of normal.  

 

In the beginning, there had been a handful of fainting spells and headaches so painful she'd be out of commission for the rest of the day.   Physical therapy helped get a great deal of the strength back in her underused limbs.  

 

Some days she still feels weak and lethargic, but she’s older.  Even  _ before _ the accident and the subsequent coma, her body didn't bounce back as quickly as it had when she was healthier.  Younger.   

 

She’s better now.  Much, much better.  But, Bucky’s treating her as if she’s fragile, as if she’s made of the most delicate glass.  As if the slightest bit of pressure will shatter her into a million, impossible to repair little pieces.  

 

She hates it.

 

At first, it was nice.  Her husband had been even more attentive than usual.   Sweeter and more caring, if that were at all possible.   But it's annoying now - the gentleness and the light touches.  Even his kisses are tentative.   He puts off sex because he's afraid he’ll forget himself and hurt her.  Not that he’s said it out loud.  But, she knows him.  Knows every single fear and reservation.

 

She misses him.  She misses the weight and heat of him over her.  Under her.  Around her.  Needs that reassurance.  Craves it.  Him.

 

She knows he wants it, too.  She’s not oblivious to the way he looks at her sometimes.  Or the embraces that go on just a little longer than usual.  

 

Or that time two weeks ago when he’d left their bed at three in the morning which, even after this long, wasn’t so out of the ordinary.  

 

The sound of the shower running registered somewhere in the back of her mind and curiosity had gotten the best of her.  She’d slipped out of bed, a bit groggy and kind of half-asleep.  Peered through a crack in the door as steam filled the bathroom.  

 

She’d watched him, her body growing  impossibly warm and wet as he’d stroked himself to completion, his cybernetic arm braced against the tiled wall and the hot water cascading in glistening rivulets down his strong, naked back.

 

Afterward, she’d gone back to bed, feeling more than a little horny and just this side of resentful.  

 

When he’d returned,  she was sure he could smell her, her heat, her arousal, but he’d simply slipped in behind her, hesitating only briefly before kissing her neck and slinging his metal arm over her hip.

 

She knows he’s being careful.  Cautious.  Far more than she needs or wants him to be.  And, she's fed up.  So fed up she's blurting out inappropriate things over coffee.  

 

Steve looks like he wants to say something.  She shakes her head at him and she's certain he makes some little relieved sound before ducking his head and averting his gaze.  

Sam sidles up next to her.  Awkwardly pats her shoulder.   Mumbles something ridiculous about being strong and she wants to punch him.  

 

She's being irrational.  Moody.  

 

But, damn...

 

Later, she and Bucky have the house to themselves.  The kids have, conveniently, found other places to be for the night. 

 

They're on the couch.  It’s quiet.  Still.  She's got the satellite radio playing, something old and bluesy she's not really paying much attention to it.  Bucky's on his side of the couch; she’s gazing down the line of her body at him, her toes tucked under his thigh to keep them warm.  She’s watching him and not even trying to hide it.  

 

He's reading a book, a big, hardback something and her eyes follow his fingers as they ghost along the edge of a page before he carefully turns it.  Imagines those fingers dancing down her spine.  Imagines the slow, smooth way they'd slip inside her and curl just so, as if beckoning her orgasm closer. 

 

“How much longer we gonna play this game?” she says suddenly, the heat rising in her, twisting and coiling through her stomach. 

 

Bucky turns his head to look at her.  He stares, confused, for a long moment.  Takes in the squint of her eyes and the slant of her lips and knows, immediately, that he's done something to annoy her, though he has no idea, just yet, what that something could be.  

 

“It's been five months since I woke up and we haven't had sex.  I am  _ not _ okay with this.”

 

Understanding softens his brow.  He closes the book.  Sets it on the side table without looking away from her.  His eyes flick down to her full lips and she sees a muscle in his jaw working beneath the scruff of his beard. 

She peers at him as she presses the heel of one bare foot into his hip.  “You think long and hard before you open that pretty mouth to say something silly, Barnes,” she warns. 

 

He doesn't speak, doesn't move, for several long seconds.  Then his flesh hand is curling around the ankle of the foot gently shoving at him.  His eyes are dark.  They glint softly in the low light.  

 

“How’re you feeling?” he rumbles, and the rough sound of his voice echoes inside her chest.  And places much lower, to be completely honest.  “How's your head?”

 

She swallows.  Shifts against the couch cushions when his thumb and index finger dip into the tender hollow below her ankle bone.

 

“Fine.”

 

“Feeling faint?  Dizzy?”

 

She licks her lips and she thinks his eyes get darker.  

 

“Not at all.”

 

He takes a slow, deep breath in through his nose.  “Go on up to bed.  I'll lock up.”

 

She's on the verge of protesting, because,  _ holy hell _ , he cannot possibly think... but there's something riding just beneath the low timbre of his voice, something raw and full of his own desire, so she swings her legs off the couch and pushes to her feet.  She has to cross in front of him to get out of the room and she swears she can feel his eyes on her as she moves away.  However, when she glances back, he's simply staring at the darkened television screen.  

 

Upstairs, inside the warm stillness of their shared bedroom, she waits.  Stands at the foot of their bed because she's full of  _ so much _ anxious, needy energy she can't force herself to sit down.  Her fingers tap out an erratic rhythm against the outside of her bare thighs.  

 

The music from downstairs cuts off abruptly and she pictures him moving about downstairs, silent, as he locks up.  She can't hear him, but she knows his routine - he’ll make a circuit of the lower level, making sure every window and door is locked tight, secure, before he comes upstairs.  He'll check the kids rooms, too, each respective window.

 

She’s used to this, understands his still present need for security and safety, however, her heart is thumping and her thighs are tingling.  She wishes he would hurry the fuck up already.  

 

When he finally steps into the bedroom, she almost sighs with relief.  She wants to go to him, to climb his big body and curl herself around it like a vine.  Somehow, she manages not to move.  Watches him as he checks the locks on the windows, using a finger to tug back the curtain and gaze outside.  

 

Satisfied, he turns to her and the light catches and gleams in his pale blue eyes.  She can't read the look on his face, the set of his mouth, jaw tensing again as he takes slow steps toward her and she can't help feeling like prey under his focused gaze. 

 

He stops in front of her.  Stares down the line of his nose at her, and she has to tilt her head to meet his eyes.  Then he’s moving again, placing his hands, both cool metal and warm flesh, on either side of her nec.  He bends to kiss her and, this time, she does sigh with relief, her body melting into the hard planes of his.

 

He’s gentle, parting her lips with his tongue and sweeping it smoothly inside her mouth.  He tastes warm and wet, all sunshine and lightning here.  She curls her fingers around his wrists.  Rocks her hips into his and feels him, hard and ready, against her stomach. 

He nips at her bottom lip the way she likes and her thighs clench.  

 

“It’s been too long, sweetheart,” he sighs, voice so low she can feel it rumbling in her own chest.  He  kisses the corner of her mouth, his breath fanning over her cheek.   “I could fuck you, or I could make love to you.  What’ll it be?”

 

Her knees almost give out.  She swallows.  Licks her lips.  Feels her arousal soaking through the crotch of her panties, ridiculously wet now both from the five month-long wait and the raw want in his words. 

 

“Goddamn, Bucky…” she whines.  

 

He chuckles darkly, fingers flexing over her skin where he still holds her.

 

“Yeah, I know what you want,” he says because it's no damn secret.  Her need for him, her want of him, is clear in her voice, in the way that she's practically vibrating against him.

 

He releases her long enough to turn them around.  Settles himself on the edge of the bed and uses his hands on her hips to bring her into the space he makes for her between his parted thighs.   He slips his hands beneath the hem of her T-shirt, his palms smoothing over her skin as he hikes it up.  Leans in and places long, lingering wet kisses over her exposed stomach, tongue and lips marking a searing path over a body he knows as well as his own.   Higher still.  She shivers when he kisses her sternum, biting back a moan at the rough scratch of his beard.  

 

She plants her hands on his shoulders to hold herself steady.  But, then she’s twisting her fingers through the fabric of his sweater because that wicked, wicked mouth of his is teasing the undersides of her breasts, nipping and sucking at the soft skin there. 

 

“Bucky,” she sighs out.  

 

He hums.  Flattens his flesh and blood hand beneath the delicate arcs of her collarbones to keep her T-shirt out of the way.  He latches on to one puckered nipple and sucks roughly.  Deeply.   Pleasure spikes through her, red-hot and sharp, her back bowing, and she nearly stumbles forward.  Manages, somehow, some way, to stay on her feet.  

 

“ _ Shiiiiit, _ ” she hisses out, her fingers coming up to curl through his hair.  

 

“Shirt off,” he mumbles around a mouthful of tit and, another time she might have laughed, but she doesn't.  Doesn't think she could if she tried, her mind a muddled mess of lust and aching desire.   She rips the shirt over head, gasping when his mouth seals around her other nipple, and he uses tongue and teeth to draw a ragged moan out of her.

 

This, yes,  _ this _ is what she'd been wanting, what she’d been craving these last few months because Bucky knows exactly how to move her, to bend her, to make her shatter.  Her skin is alight, blood pulsing in all the places she needs him most, the suction of his mouth forming a hot, shuddering line straight to her neglected cunt.  

 

She feels him pulling at her panties. He peels them off of her, shoving them roughly down her legs.  He holds her steady while she kicks out of them, her balance iffy under normal circumstances but damn near non-existent now that she's high on this lust-haze.  

 

He releases her long enough to yank his sweater over his head and toss it to the floor,  blue eyes gleaming and full of fierce, hungry light, and there's some measure of relief in knowing he’s equally affected by having gone without.  

 

He pops the button of his jeans.  Disengages the zipper.  Never takes his eyes off of her even as he lifts up enough to shove the garment down his own thickly muscled thighs.  He kicks them away and grabs for her.

 

“Ride me,” he demands, pulling and tugging at her until she's straddling his hips, her knees sinking into the mattress on either side of him.  

 

He wastes no time reaching between their bodies and angling himself at her entrance.  Doesn't bother with the usual pleasant tease and torture which normally marks their couplings.  He slicks the broad head of his cock through her folds, easily parting them, and uses the other hand at her hip to press her down onto him.  Gasps loudly as her cunt takes him in completely. 

 

She jerks, involuntarily backing off of him because the pleasure is already too much, too soon.  But Bucky is having none of it.  He slings his metal arm around her waist, flesh fingers digging into her hip,  effortlessly keeping her curvy body pressed flush with his as he lays back on the bed.

 

“No, you don't,” he growls.  Sinks his teeth into the soft skin of her neck and tempers the bite with a lingering kiss at the hinge of her jaw.  “I said, ride me.”

 

She whimpers.  Plants her forearms on the mattress on either side of his head.  She rocks forward, slowly slipping him out of her until his head is barely kissing her slick entrance, then pushing back.  Hisses as he bottoms out inside her once more.  He hums his approval.  Keeps his arm locked around her waist while she finds her rhythm.

 

“You caught me,” he murmurs in her ear.  “In the shower.  I wanted you so fucking bad, I had to get myself off in the shower.”

 

Pleasure arcs up her spine, ignites and pulses in the base of her skull at the sound of his words and her own steady fucking of her husband. 

“Dammit, Bucky,” she whines, fingers twisting in the bedspread.

 

“I thought of fucking you.  Thought of fucking you so hard.   _ So deep… Ummmph… _ ”

 

One particularly delicious wind of her hips has him shuddering beneath her, his arm tightening briefly before letting up again.

 

“Missed you so much, baby,” he rasps.  Shifts until he’s squeezing one well-rounded ass cheek in his flesh hand.

 

Her rhythm falters, though only briefly and she feels so greedy, simply taking, but she can't stop.  He feels so fucking good inside her - hard and deep and absolutely perfect.

 

“ _ Bucky _ …”

 

“Take it, sweetheart.  It’s all yours.”

 

“ _Ahhhh…_ _fuuuuuck….”_

 

Fucking wicked Bucky and his wicked fucking mouth.  She's coming, pushing at his shoulders even as she continues to ride him, the orgasm rolling through her on an impossibly hot, sparking wave of light and pulsing sensation.

 

Bucky shifts again, grips her hips with both hands and spreads his legs wide.  Digs his heels into the carpet.  Holds her steady as he slams up into her, grunting harshly, desperately, into her ear, drawing out the pleasure and forcing her even higher.

 

He fucks her through it.   Chants her name as he plunges through the near vise-like clutch of her still spasming cunt, both arms banded around the middle of her back.  And when he comes, he comes hard and long, rutting into her and moaning in what sounds very much like relief, though she can barely hear him over the blood rushing past her ears.

 

They lay like this for long moments, a mess now, breathing heavy and deep, slick skin against slick skin.  She only moves when her back begins to cramp up and the muscles of her legs get too tight.  She crawls off of him.  Collapses on her stomach beside him.   He follows immediately, tucking in close and placing a soft kiss to her damp brow.

 

“You ok?” he asks, smoothing his hand across her lower back

 

“Absolutely,” she sighs out, mellow now.  Still hazy and her heart beating fast and heavy.  She can feel it throbbing between her thighs and at the tips of her fingers.  

 

He smiles softly at her, though she can see the concern shifting behind his lovely eyes.  She reaches out.  Lightly scratches her nails through the scruff covering his chin.    God, she loves this man.  

 

“I'm fine.  I promise. Now get me some water.  We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, Barnes.”

 

He laughs.  Leans in and palms her ass as he nuzzles her cheek.  

 

“Greedy woman.”

  
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**Author's Note:**

> More to come! Please comment and kudos if you like!


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